Seeing
by tfbl
Summary: A short snippet from the life of Joanna Holmes as she tells about her experiences with a father whom is considered "different". Contains asexual!Sherlock, Johnlock, sort of Parent!lock, and some minor Mycroft bashing. (Genre is guesswork, as I'm not sure what this falls under).


**I think of Joanna as being portrayed by** **Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey and Adam by David Anders****,**** just in case anyone cares.**

**Disclaimer: Do not own **_**Sherlock**_**, only Joanna Holmes.**

**Seeing**

Joanna Holmes remains in the kitchen of 221 B, tightly gripping the counter as she stares through a wayward brown lock after Mycroft's retreating back. She feels the anger that she has long since grown accustomed to rising in her chest, her Uncle's words echoing in her ears as her father stands stock still before her. His hands are clenched into fists behind his back, shoulders tight as he ignores the rapidly cooling tea upon the table. The sunlight streaming in through the window highlights the gray hiding amidst his dark and curly stands, and Joanna doesn't have to look behind her to know that John is standing there, equal amounts of gray amidst the gold and angry eyes.

As almost always occurs after one of her Uncle's visits they both stare at the man they love - a father to one and lover of just over two decades to the other - an absolutely infuriating, obsessive, and caring man that is suffering once more.

Suffering because of what her uncle said. What he _always_ says, to some variation or another.

Her uncle does not observe what it does to her father, every time those words are spoken.

_Don't be alarmed, it has to do with sex._

_Sex doesn't alarm me._

_How would you know?_

Oh, he sees the flash of hurt in his sibling's eyes, the pale blue so unlike Joanna's own bright hazel orbs.

Hurt that her father would never admit to and that is quickly shoved down and stifled before being deleted from his hard drive – or so he claims.

Of course her uncle sees it, what his words inflict upon the only person in the world whom cares about him. He'd have to be blind not to. Anyone would.

What is not observed is just how deep that hurt goes.

For when you are like Sherlock Holmes people treat you as if you are somehow different.

When you are not attracted to either men nor woman and only notice their appearance in an purely objective sense people…. people act as if you're _wrong_.

Damaged.

Strange.

A freak.

Not every person, of course. There are those that accept and at least make the attempt to be considerate, but many people do not attempt nor accept. Oddly enough people can understand almost any other form of desire, even if they do not approve of it.

Men.

Women.

Both.

Bondage.

Vanilla.

Public.

Even children and animals, as revolting as it is.

Yes. Almost everything else, expect Asexual.

They can't understand it – don't want to understand it – so they treat it and yourself, by extension, as if it is all a joke.

Like it's a mental illness brought on by childhood trauma or a medical disease that's easily curable. They try to set you up on dates and assume that you want it but just aren't letting yourself and push and label and more often then not make you half believe that they are right and that _you_ are the problem.

Until you either seek therapy for a problem that was never a problem to begin with, or, like her father, you learn to ignore them because they're idiots that cannot accept anyone outside of their tiny little boxes and because _they_ know that it is not a problem.

Sometimes people will assume things.

Things that are big or small, things that are often false while others may be approaching on the truth, and then there are assumptions that take root due to misunderstanding as well as that irrational hatred of _difference_ that seems to be an inbred staple of all humanity.

A little thing?

Those types of people can't love.

Joanna has heard that more times then she can remember.

False. Every word of it.

As if a lack of sexual attraction makes people like her father void of all other emotion.

No one would ever think that, if they bothered to actually look whenever he was with her. If they knew that for eleven years she was the only one whom he smiled for. If they had noticed the pride in his eyes at her accomplishments and the gentle tolerance as he coached her through her failures. If they knew that he never ignored her even when he was lost in his mind palace while tuning out everything else and kissed her forehead and woke her from nightmares. If they knew that he never left her alone unless there was a sitter present until she has almost thirteen and even then he called her every two hours, just to make sure. If they knew that he had always watched her ballet recitals and assured that there was adequate food in the fridge and had allowed her to peer through a microscope until the moon was waning in the sky and played more dull childish games with her then he could count and never _ever_ deleted anything about her from his mind. As if there had not been rage in his eyes when he saw where that American had struck her and as if he wouldn't have slaughtered James Moriarty right there upon that rooftop had he threatened her. As if, now that she is a competent and married adult of twenty nine, he still wouldn't move heaven and earth for her.

No one would ever think that if they saw him with John Watson. The ex solider that became a second father to her and, through a very slow process, her father's lover and domestic partner. A process that expanded six years to come to its completion. Six years of friendship and innocent touches, of learning to read each-other and anger mixed with laughter, of protection and believing and feelings of jealously and something deeper that was continually pushed aside, of clothes mixed with mugs and knick knacks that were strewn every-which way and a marriage that fell through, of acceptance of desires that were always denied and adjusting to the fact that this – every last bit of it, even the parts that made them want to scream – was real.

It was real when John noticed Sherlock's cheekbones and knew how much sugar he took in his coffee and what _that_ look meant, when her father stole a crystal ashtray because he knew John would laugh and he apologized for yelling and made sure John ate and slept while he stayed up for hours on end. It was real when Irene Adler knew they were a couple before they themselves did, when John denied being attracted to men and then fought to accept that it was so, and when her father kept his growing feelings for John hidden because he thought that it was what was best for his friend. It was real when her father trusted John to be alone with her, to protect her, to talk to her and help with those common life problems he was completely baffled by and teach her things that would never have occurred to him. Things like crushes and fishing, how to camp in the woods and dress wounds, the more complicated areas grocery shopping, through cleaning, and bank accounts along with dealing with bullies and Mrs. Hudson's more intrusive side, and how to _talk_ to her father regarding her frequent loneliness brought on by his long absences.

It's real now. It's real when they fight and her father isn't hurt when John tunes him out, when their sock indexes get mixed up and her father makes tea without being asked. It's real when just a peck on the lips is alright and her father calls her up complaining that John hid his cigarettes again and when Joanna walks into the apartment to find the place looking like a bomb went off and her father's head in John's lap. It's real when they don't talk for a week and John still breaks someone's nose because they insulted his partner and her father panics when John has a gun to his head. It's been decades since they first kissed, since they met in an laboratory, and they are still the same. John is still a calm, reasonable man with hidden nerves of steel and her father remains an insensitive jackass with a lightening mind that would put a hummingbird on crack to shame. They are the same men that would leap off a roof and shoot a man, if it meant saving the other.

No one would think so if they saw her father with his friends either.

Mrs. Hudson. A white haired, frail woman whom has become more like a mother to both her father and herself, a woman that's kind and tough in addition to slightly foolish, whom her father once half killed a man in defense of.

Molly Hooper, a brilliant and loyal pathologist whom has always counted and held her father's trust, whom helped him fake his own death years ago and has become more like a sister to him then anything else, whom can coax a smile from the normally grim faced man and for whom her father broke the arm of a past boyfriend whom had cheated on her.

Greg Lestrade. Not exactly the closet of friends, even after all this time, yet not the most distant, either. The kind of friend that isn't surprised when her father whips in and out of a crime scene undeterred by his aging joints and knows to take his word above anyone else's, yet doesn't expect the sandwich that is thrown at him even though he hadn't mentioned to anyone that it'd been nine hours since he last ate. The type of friend that her father has a drink with and calls up because he's board and doesn't hold accountable for that one memorable arrest. The type of friend that her father enjoys being around, rather then merely tolerates. The type of friend that he would miss where he gone, and vise versa.

Adam? Her husband and his son in law? Well nobody could say that her father _hates _him, but he doesn't _love_ him, neither. Not like her or his friends. Joanna knows that her father loves him – alright _cares_ about – him in his own way though. By which she means that Adam is subjected to the same treatment that idiots and strangers receive: mostly rude coupled with a lot of unwelcome deducing along with occasional politeness and an infrequent sense that he doesn't mind their company. Much of that, however, is brought on by the still unwelcome fact that Adam is _married to his daughter… is having sex with his little girl_. If that wasn't the case Joanna knows that her father would like her husband well enough. They share enough basic interests, after all. It also helps that Adam gets along well with John and don't mind her father most of the time, that she has chosen to keep her maiden name, and that her father _will_ ask about his welfare on occasion, providing that they have not encountered each other for at least a month. So that last one is uncommon, but no one could ever say that her father does not hold some affection for his son in law.

Yes. That false assumption would shatter if those whom hold it were ever to see her father with the people whom he loves.

An awful thing?

People will, inevitably, believe in awful things that they have no proof of and yet still suspect simply because they can't wrap their minds around it. The fact that someone did not desire sex. In her father's case, it was that he desired children. That he desired _her_. Because she, as a child of six years old, had innocently said that her daddy didn't like big people and liked her much better because he kissed her and let her sleep in his bed and took her lots of fun places. There had never been anything like _that_, then or now. Yet because they couldn't understand and she, as a child, didn't know how to explain even though her father had tried to explain it to her in the simplest Sherlocktion terms that he could they had _assumed_. She didn't and they couldn't so she was almost taken away. Almost.

A simple misunderstanding? That people whom are asexual are incapable of feeling any form of sexual desire or arousal. Joanna knows that this might be true for some, but it is not so for her father. After all, that was how she came about. The result of a series of "experiments" conducted by her then twenty three year old father, a broken condom, and one parent that did not want the resulting child whilst another did. Did and was more than willing her raise her by himself, in spite of the difficulties. No. Her father had always been able to _feel_ arousal, for he has the same nerves and anatomy as the next man, he just simply wasn't interested in sex. In fact, that had been an issue that was carefully discussed by her fathers at the start of their official romantic relationship. How Sherlock was willing to have sex with John but he didn't _desire_ it in the way that John did, and whether or not John would prefer to look elsewhere for sexual intimacy. John had said no, of course, and although Joanna does not know exactly what was agreed upon, some sort of compromise was reached. It appears that they are both happy with it, so it must still be working.

Everything else? Joanna doesn't feel like explaining it, for they are present within the media and society and are hurled even at those whom are not like her father. Because they, like her father, are different in some way. In some minuscule manner that doesn't matter… and yet does. Somehow.

Yes.

People, strangers, will assume things. The fact that they are strangers however, doesn't make the sting of their assumptions any less. Regardless of what her father claims.

But when your own family does it?

When you are treated as if you are _less_ by the only people that are never supposed to think so?

When the utter _disgust_ is so clear within their voice that a deaf person would recognize it?

When the one that practically raised you assumes and misjudges whilst labeling and insulting despite all evidence to the contrary?

When it is someone you still love despite years of hostility and a relationship that's chilly at best?

When it is that same someone whom you _know_ loves you in return? That is concerned for you and gets you out of trouble and would have armed guards flowing you and is more then willing to die for you despite of the disgust they feel and the words they utter that are _designed_ to mock and degrade?

It is like a million tiny knives straight though the heart.

One thousand cuts upon your skin.

Two million blows to every emotion that you posses.

And everytime there is more blood spilt as the knives twist once again, the cuts will become deeper, and the bruises turn darker. The hurt grows. Every single time.

Every single time even though there is _nothing_ wrong with him, never was and never will be. Never, despite what her uncle thinks, despite how he utters words that he knows will hurt her father.

The little brother that deliberately infuriates him and looks up to him and whom would not hesitate to step in front of a bullet for him.

Other people might turn to alcohol or some other destructive habit to deal with the hurt, but her not her father.

Once upon a time he did do drugs, yes, but he'd never became an addict and taking the drugs in the first place was to quiet the constant whirling of his thoughts more then anything else.

No. Now, just as when she was a child – when she was a child and she would putt Mickey Mouse and Princess band-aids all over his skin and bring him juice and he would smile as she tried to kiss the owies away, invisible owies that made daddy look sad and that always came after Uncle Mycroft visited but she didn't know why - he will come up with another way to deal with the hurt.

Her father throws himself into his cases and experiments more so then he usually does.

Goes even longer without sleep and will only eat when either she or John almost literally shoves food down his throat.

When he aids her with her paperwork for the morgue he is even less focused then normal, figuring out the problem within three minutes before staring into space and blurting out random answers while deducing – and insulting – every one of her coworkers as well as his own. Often she will arrive at work before dawn to find the room smelling strongly of cigarettes (for the first time in quite a few years, mind), a book covered counter, and her father either peering through a microscope or examining a body, the slightly bloodshot look to his eyes behind his glasses indicting that he's been there all night. For him a few hours in her lab is normal, not a _whole bloody night_. Smoking has certainly become _less_ common as well. Joanna will not say anything, simply pocket his cigarettes before sleepily stumbling from the room and heading to the lounge. While she waits for the coffee to brew she will send a text to Adam requesting an extra container of food and another one to John, informing him that his husband is once again trying to become one of the walking dead. After Joanna has acquired her father's accustomed drink – black, two sugars, and strong enough to split a steel marble – she will head back to the lab and proceed to set the mug at his elbow, again remaining silent when thanks are not forthcoming. That's not normal either. For him not to thank her. Everyone else yes, but not her. She expects it though, when this happens. Doesn't mean that she hates it any less.

Once John confided in her that, when this occurs, it is her father that will inaitie their love making, the desperation and intensity of his movements that of a man whom, despite all these years, is afraid that the other half of his soul will leave him.

Joanna knows that he will play his violin for hours, the almost heartbreaking notes that she had often fallen asleep to giving voice to the emotions that he has fooled himself into believing are tightly bottled away.

Running. That's what he is doing. Not from _himself_, but from the pain. The pain of caring, of feeling.

Once Joanna overheard him say something akin to "caring is a disadvantage", and thanks to her Uncle, she knew that if it wasn't for herself and John, he would inconvertibly believe this.

For caring has got him revulsion and rejection and wounds that are constantly reopened.

Caring has forced him to watch as an uncle that Joanna once admired and respected, that played battleship and chess and took her skiing and to amusement parks…. that she once had nothing but love for becomes a source of pain. Pain that he cannot cure, a failure that he cannot prevent. He hates failure, her father. Hates it even more when she is the one suffering for it.

Her father, when he so chooses, can turn off almost every other emotion, except this. Never this.

So Joanna, once more, observes the hurt within her father's eyes that her uncle can only see.

Always only see.

And with every flash, every obsessive mind palace hour and every sad note ringing in her ears, she hates her uncle just a little more. Unlike John, whom has grown to simply hate Mycroft, Joanna hates him despite loving him. Just like her father.

Why can't her uncle do more than _see_?

**END**


End file.
